


Still Life

by Maverick



Category: Oz - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-27
Updated: 2010-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maverick/pseuds/Maverick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was written for the first Secret Identities Challenge in which authors had to write and post a story anonymously using the following prompt, "someone tells the truth and someone tells a lie." A first person Keller fic.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Still Life

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the first Secret Identities Challenge in which authors had to write and post a story anonymously using the following prompt, "someone tells the truth and someone tells a lie." A first person Keller fic.

There’s a reason we’re called con _artists_ because  
no matter how dirty, there’s always beauty and power coursing  
through the graft. Grifting’s an art form just like any other,  
‘cept the canvas’s a little more volatile. Some artists  
use paints or clay or fucking paper-mache.

I use people.

I can color you up and whittle you down ‘til you fit my vision.  
I can cast you in shadow and bathe you in light until you don’t  
know your own reflection. I can make you believe in whatever I say,  
whatever I do. Don’t matter that you know better, don’t  
matter that you’re educated or world wise. And it don’t  
matter that you’ve been burned before. In fact all the better.

You’ll still buy what I’m selling. Hook, line and sinker.

_“I love you, Toby.”_

Because _I_ want you to. That ain’t arrogance talking,  
that’s cold hard fact. I am a master of this medium. I can paint  
you a picture you’d sell your soul to believe. I can mold you  
a sculpture, you’d burn your fingers to touch. And I can take  
a piece of shit and wrap it up so sweet you’d think it’s  
fucking candy. That’s what I do. That’s who I _am_.  


Sometimes I’m Picasso, baby. And sometimes I’m Van Gogh.  
Abstract or Impression, it don’t matter. The outcome is the same.  
You’ll give me what I ask for every fucking time. You won’t  
want to and you’ll fight it, but in the end the illustration craves  
the pen.

  
You might think I’m full of shit, but the best work is always  
done over a worn and weary landscape. The scars of the past add texture  
and depth. The colors burn deeper and shimmer more bright. Sometimes  
something new, something exquisite can only be born of something damaged.  
And sometimes, just sometimes the artist learns that his composition  
may have a vision of his own.

Self portrait time. Because I see myself mirrored in your eyes. And  
the view ain’t what I expected, fractured though it may be. Something  
ugly has been reformed.

_“I missed you.”_

Do you believe me? It don’t really matter. The same damage is  
done either way. The artist is bound to his art and his art to him.  
It’s true what they say, there’s a sucker born every minute.  
It’s primal nature to want to believe. Even a cynic has moments  
of faith.

Just look at me.

Truth or lie? You decide.

—FIN—


End file.
